Living with Habba Syndrome bearable with correct diagnosis Special

Kentville - Diarrhea is not something that most of us enjoy talking about. A Nova Scotia, Canada woman speaks candidly about her ordeal with the problem and how it took years to get a diagnosis to help her debilitating condition.

Mary Jenkins, 50, recalls her first bout of diarrhea starting about six years ago. She was shopping at a local mall and was completely overcome with the urge "to go". "It was overpowering. I just couldn't get to the washroom fast enough and by the time I got there it was too late, I was in a terrible mess." Luckily, her daughter was with her and was able to call home to have a change of clothes brought to her. "It was so embarrassing, and I couldn't imagine why such a thing would happen to me. I had just eaten at a restaurant in the department store and thought I might have food poisoning." But the problem persisted. It was not something that happened on occasion. It was happening two to three times daily, sometimes more. "I soon became what they call a bathroom mapper." Every time Mary would go somewhere she would have to know where the washrooms were before she could do anything. A trip to her family doctor started a process she would never forget. "I was scared to death! I was going through a whole batch of tests for this and that, but the one thing that scared me was cancer," she said as if she were reliving the scare she had. Her eyes told me that word was a nightmare for her. "It seemed to take forever for the tests to come back." To her relief they were negative, but that still left her not knowing what her problem was and the diarrhea wasn't going away. She was eventually diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and started treatment. The treatments didn't work at first so she thought that she would just have to wait a little longer, but that didn't happen. The symptoms continued. Weight loss was the order of the day as she had started to stop eating after 4:00 p.m. to allow herself a comfortable evening. "If I ate anything after that time I would be plagued throughout the night. I always liked snacking in the evening, watching a movie or some show that was on, but that habit was over." "I always liked being invited out to someone's home for dinner, but unless I wanted to spend that time in the bathroom, I would just refrain from eating and would simply play with my food." With a guilty look on her face she adds, "I'm sure they thought I didn't like it, but I didn't want to let anyone know about my problem." Mary had begun to be reclusive. She stayed home and watched what she ate and mostly when she ate it. The weight loss continued and so did the doctor visits which were to no avail. She had now dropped under the 100 pound mark and says, "I thought I was just going to fade away. I was depressed and considered my life to be miserable." Mary had resigned herself to living her life this way and started to consider her new habits as normal. "For four years I lived this way, until one night my husband was watching Mystery Diagnosis on television and called me into the room. He said "You just have to see this! This woman on this show has the same problem you have." The woman being portrayed on the show was displaying the same symptoms as Mary. She displayed post-prandial diarrhea (diarrhea after eating) and a fear of eating in order to avoid diarrhea. She also did not respond to therapies intended for IBS. Mary wrote down the information and made an appointment with her doctor. She said she wasn't surprised that her doctor hadn't heard of the condition before, but after a quick visit to the website her doctor ripped off a sheet of paper from the examining table and started to draw her a picture. She recalls him saying as he showed her the picture of her stomach and gallbladder, "If your theory is correct, and I prescribe you a bile binding agent, your diarrhea should stop or at least be reduced within a few days. It's safe, so let's give it a try." He prescribed cholestyramine, a powder that you mix with water or juice and then drink about a half hour before you eat. It is normally prescribed to patients with high cholesterol. To Mary's amazement it didn't take a few days. The effect was immediate. The diarrhea disappeared completely. The diagnosis was Habba Syndrome which bears the name of the doctor who first described it in August, 2000, Dr. Saad Habba, a private practitioner in Summit, New Jersey. Habba Syndrome is an association between a dysfunctional, intact gallbladder and chronic diarrhea. Patients with the disorder have chronic diarrhea, meaning they have three or more loose bowel movements per day. Mary says, "Thank God for smart people. I was beginning to think this would be the death of me." It is estimated that 20 million Americans suffer from IBS and according to Dr. Habba many of these most likely have Habba Syndrome so without a proper diagnosis they probably aren't getting the relief they need. Mary kept the picture her doctor drew and took it back to him to have it signed.